The Move to San Diego
By February 4, Hazmi and Mihdhar had come to San Diego from Los Angeles,
possibly driven by Mohdar Abdullah. Abdullah, a Yemeni university student in his
early 20s, is fluent in both Arabic and English, and was perfectly suited to
assist the hijackers in pursuing their mission.20
After 9/11,Abdullah was interviewed many times by the FBI. He admitted
knowing of Hazmi and Mihdhar's extremist leanings and Mihdhar's involvement with
the Islamic Army of Aden (a group with ties to al Qaeda) back in Yemen. Abdullah
clearly was sympathetic to those extremist views. During a post-9/11 search of
his possessions, the FBI found a notebook (belonging to someone else) with
references to planes falling from the sky, mass killing, and hijacking. Further,
when detained as a material witness following the 9/11 attacks, Abdullah
expressed hatred for the U.S. government and "stated that the U.S. brought
'this' on themselves."21
When interviewed by the FBI after 9/11, Abdullah denied having advance
knowledge of attacks. In May 2004, however, we learned of reports about Abdullah
bragging to fellow inmates at a California prison in September- October 2003
that he had known Hazmi and Mihdhar were planning a terrorist attack. The
stories attributed to Abdullah are not entirely consistent with each other.
Specifically, according to one inmate, Abdullah claimed an unnamed individual
had notified him that Hazmi and Mihdhar would be arriving in Los Angeles with
plans to carry out an attack. Abdullah allegedly told the same inmate that he
had driven the two al Qaeda operatives from Los Angeles to San Diego, but did
not say when this occurred. We have been unable to corroborate this account.22
Another inmate has recalled Abdullah claiming he first heard about the
hijackers' terrorist plans after they arrived in San Diego, when they told him
they planned to fly an airplane into a building and invited him to join them on
the plane. According to this inmate, Abdullah also claimed to have found out
about the 9/11 attacks three weeks in advance, a claim that appears to dovetail
with evidence that Abdullah may have received a phone call from Hazmi around
that time, that he stopped making calls from his telephone after August 25,
2001, and that, according to his friends, he started acting strangely.23
Although boasts among prison inmates often tend to be unreliable, this
evidence is obviously important. To date, neither we nor the FBI have been able
to verify Abdullah's alleged jailhouse statements, despite investigative
efforts.
We thus do not know when or how Hazmi and Mihdhar first came to San Diego. We
do know that on February 4, they went to the Islamic Center of San Diego to find
Omar al Bayoumi and take him up on his offer of help. Bayoumi obliged by not
only locating an apartment but also helping them fill out the lease application,
co-signing the lease and, when the real estate agent refused to take cash for a
deposit, helping them open a bank account (which they did with a $9,900
deposit); he then provided a certified check from his own account for which the
al Qaeda operatives reimbursed him on the spot for the deposit. Neither then nor
later did Bayoumi give money to either Hazmi or Mihdhar, who had received money
from KSM.24
Hazmi and Mihdhar moved in with no furniture and practically no possessions.
Soon after the move, Bayoumi used their apartment for a party attended by some
20 male members of the Muslim community. At Bayoumi's request, Bin Don
videotaped the gathering with Bayoumi's video camera. Hazmi and Mihdhar did not
mingle with the other guests and reportedly spent most of the party by
themselves off camera, in a back room.25
Hazmi and Mihdhar immediately started looking for a different place to stay.
Based on their comment to Bayoumi about the first apartment being expensive, one
might infer that they wanted to save money. They may also have been
reconsidering the wisdom of living so close to the video camera-wielding Bayoumi,
who Hazmi seemed to think was some sort of Saudi spy. Just over a week after
moving in, Hazmi and Mihdhar filed a 30-day notice of intention to vacate.
Bayoumi apparently loaned them his cell phone to help them check out
possibilities for new accommodations.26
Their initial effort to move turned out poorly. An acquaintance arranged with
his landlord to have Mihdhar take over his apartment. Mihdhar put down a $650
deposit and signed a lease for the apartment effective March 1. Several weeks
later, Mihdhar sought a refund of his deposit, claiming he no longer intended to
move in because the apartment was too messy. When the landlord refused to refund
the deposit, Mihdhar became belligerent. The landlord remembers him
"ranting and raving" as if he were "psychotic."27
Hazmi and Mihdhar finally found a room to rent in the home of an individual
they had met at a mosque in San Diego. According to the homeowner, the future
hijackers moved in on May 10, 2000. Mihdhar moved out after only about a month.
On June 9, he left San Diego to return to Yemen. Hazmi, on the other hand,
stayed at this house for the rest of his time in California, until mid-December;
he would then leave for Arizona with a newly arrived 9/11 hijacker-pilot, Hani
Hanjour.28
While in San Diego, Hazmi and Mihdhar played the part of recently arrived
foreign students. They continued to reach out to members of the Muslim community
for help. At least initially, they found well-meaning new acquaintances at the
Islamic Center of San Diego, which was only a stone's throw from the apartment
where they first lived. For example, when they purchased a used car (with cash),
they bought it from a man who lived across the street from the Islamic Center
and who let them use his address in registering the vehicle, an accommodation
"to help a fellow Muslim brother." Similarly, in April, when their
cash supply may have been dwindling, Hazmi persuaded the administrator of the
Islamic Center to let him use the administrator's bank account to receive a
$5,000 wire transfer from someone in Dubai, in the United Arab Emirates (this
was KSM's nephew, Ali Abdul Aziz Ali).29
Hazmi and Mihdhar visited other mosques as well, mixing comfortably as devout
worshippers. During the operatives' critical first weeks in San Diego, Mohdar
Abdullah helped them. Translating between English and Arabic, he assisted them
in obtaining California driver's licenses and with applying to language and
flight schools. Abdullah also introduced them to his circle of friends; he
shared an apartment with some of those friends near the Rabat mosque in La Mesa,
a few miles from the hijackers' residence.30
Abdullah has emerged as a key associate of Hazmi and Mihdhar in San Diego.
Detained after 9/11 (first as a material witness, then on immigration charges),
he was deported to Yemen on May 21, 2004, after the U.S. Attorney for the
Southern District of California declined to prosecute him on charges arising out
of his alleged jailhouse admissions concerning the 9/11 operatives. The
Department of Justice declined to delay his removal pending further
investigation of this new information.31
Other friends of Abdullah also translated for Hazmi and Mihdhar and helped
them adjust to life in San Diego. Some held extremist beliefs or were well
acquainted with known extremists. For example, immediately after 9/11, Osama
Awadallah, a Yemeni whose telephone number was found in Hazmi's Toyota at
Washington Dulles International Airport, was found to possess photos, videos,
and articles relating to Bin Ladin. Awadallah also had lived in a house where
copies of Bin Ladin's fatwas and other similar materials were distributed to the
residents. Omar Bakarbashat, a Saudi, also met Hazmi and Mihdhar at the Rabat
mosque. He admitted helping Hazmi to learn English and taking over the
operatives' first apartment in San Diego after they moved out. Bakarbashat
apparently had downloaded stridently anti-American Web pages to his computer's
hard drive.32
Another potentially significant San Diego contact for Hazmi and Mihdhar was
Anwar Aulaqi, an imam at the Rabat mosque. Born in New Mexico and thus a U.S.
citizen, Aulaqi grew up in Yemen and studied in the United States on a Yemeni
government scholarship. We do not know how or when Hazmi and Mihdhar first met
Aulaqi. The operatives may even have met or at least talked to him the same day
they first moved to San Diego. Hazmi and Mihdhar reportedly respected Aulaqi as
a religious figure and developed a close relationship with him.33
When interviewed after 9/11, Aulaqi said he did not recognize Hazmi's name
but did identify his picture. Although Aulaqi admitted meeting with Hazmi
several times, he claimed not to remember any specifics of what they discussed.
He described Hazmi as a soft-spoken Saudi student who used to appear at the
mosque with a companion but who did not have a large circle of friends.34
Aulaqi left San Diego in mid-2000, and by early 2001 had relocated to
Virginia. As we will discuss later, Hazmi eventually showed up at Aulaqi's
mosque in Virginia, an appearance that may not have been coincidental. We have
been unable to learn enough about Aulaqi's relationship with Hazmi and Mihdhar
to reach a conclusion.35
In sum, although the evidence is thin as to specific motivations, our overall
impression is that soon after arriving in California, Hazmi and Mihdhar sought
out and found a group of young and ideologically like-minded Muslims with roots
in Yemen and Saudi Arabia, individuals mainly associated with Mohdar Abdullah
and the Rabat mosque. The al Qaeda operatives lived openly in San Diego under
their true names, listing Hazmi in the telephone directory. They managed to
avoid attracting much attention.
